Tuesday, January 12, 2010

Game of the Year -- 11th Place

This is the tenth part in a series of articles which will count down to revealing what game was voted as the 2009 USCL Game of the Year. For more information on exactly how this process works and the prize information, please refer to: Game of the Year Contest.

*This contest will take about a week's hiatus while the Commissioner is on vacation. Be sure to check on the USCL site to see when it resumes, along with keeping an eye out on uschess.org for an article breaking down the final ten games.

FM Ron Young (10th Place, 11 points): I was going to say something like "might be the game of fifty two weeks, but not the Game of the Year". But it did not actually win the weekly prize. So let me try something else. If Wagner's music is better than it sounds, this game is sounder than it holds up. Man, I'll never make Bartlett's at this rate. Anyway, if all these games were my children, this one would be the black sheep but my secret favorite. But they aren't.

WFM Tatev Abrahamyan (14th Place, 7 points): A disappointing loss for Black, but a nice way for White to complicate things. A lot of inaccuracies and mistakes; I think Black should have managed to react better to the sacrifices instead of trying so hard to hang on to the piece. Either Black completely underestimated White's ideas or panicked, but either way a nice way to complicate a game.

GM Robert Hess (15th Place, 6 points): Not a fan of this game. Becerra played a very passive opening, only to give Black a decent advantage. After "sacrificing" – it seemed more like Friedel won a piece by the merit of his own strong play, Becerra was losing. 29... Bb4 would have given Black a huge edge; 29... Bb4 30. dxe5 Bxe1 31. d6 Bxf2+ 32. Nxf2 Qb6 33. d7 Rd8 34. Qd3 Bxd7 35. c7 Be6 36. cxd8+ Rxd8 is practically -+.

I do not see a moment where Becerra truly played a nice move. Again, 35... b2 would have been winning for Black. Maybe I am missing something, but it seems that Friedel completely outplayed Becerra the entire game and happened to blunder and lose. If anything, I'd rank this game highly for stressing how to play on the Black side of these types of positions.